> > This is a very basic question I have never gotten a good > technical answer for. > > What makes UD glass so special or expensive? Other L lens > attributes such as > aspherical or flourite lenses are intuitively obvious since the grinding, > molding, deposition or crystal growing techniques are more technically > complicated than a regular spherical glass lens. What's the deal with low > dispersion glass; do the rare earth additives cost a million > dollars an ounce? > Is the glass so hard it takes longer to grind? Is it really > fragile and hard > to handle with lots of scrap? Why can Tokina, Sigma or Tamron > put UD glass > into a much cheaper lens? > > Any optical experts out there? > > Thanks, > John Lovda
Hi John, Surely you don't think the cost of materials is the reason that high-end products are more expensive. On a commodity item (low tech, well understood, common tech, easy to design, manufacture and distribute), the actual cost of materials can be a very large factor in the cost of the product. By definition, high-end products are not commodities and therefore can and do demand higher, sometimes MUCH higher prices in the marketplace. At the risk of tweaking some people, IMO third party lenses are simply not as good overall and to offset this they must offer lower prices to create a place in the market. That said, not ALL Canon lenses are diamonds but there very are few poor lenses in the line up within a given category and price point. Here are some qualifying words; among third party lenses there are a few truly excellent lenses (Sigma comes to mind), but overall no third party lens maker offers a complete lens system of the quality of Canon (or Nikon for that matter). Let it fly! Regards, Chip Louie * **** ******* *********************************************************** * For list instructions, including unsubscribe, see: * http://www.a1.nl/phomepag/markerink/eos_list.htm ***********************************************************
